Archives

The Digital World is Having a Serious Impact on Our Relationships and Our Brains

By Diane Ackerman - Despite all the seeming connectedness, we’re not the most socially connected we’ve ever been. Generation by generation, our brains have been evolving new networks, new ways of wiring and firing, favoring some behaviors and discarding others, as we train ourselves to meet the challenges of a world we keep amplifying, editing, deconstructing, and recreating.

A Family Dinner Leads to Reflecting on a Legacy

By Roberta Israeloff - To my mother, who inherited the holiday after my grandmother's death, producing the seder was nothing short of a colossal chore—a feeling she'd communicate with every pot she slammed on the stove. Now, it's my turn.

How Boomers Shaped Millennial Romance

Couples therapist Esther Perel has been recognized as one of the world’s most original and insightful thinkers about couples, sexuality, and the peculiar paradoxes besetting modern marriage in the Western world. In this clip from her Networker Symposium keynote, she talks about the complicated and contradictory needs that are shaping Millennial marriage and commitment today.

Three Steps to Effective Conversation

Oren Jay Sofer • 11/8/2018 • No Comments

By Oren Jay Sofer - Dialogue is a lot like dancing. It takes time to learn the basics, but when we’re conversing smoothly with someone else, it can be magical. We find a flow as we shift attention back and forth, hearing one another and allowing things to settle.

Five Clinicians Give Their Take

By Chris Lyford - A therapist recently joined a few online dating apps after finding herself newly single. She's seen several clients come up in these apps, and suspects they've seen her too. This puts her in an awkward position with these clients. Here's how five therapists say they'd tackle the situation.

A Daughter Struggles with the Medical System's Epidemic of Overtreatment

By Katy Butler - Although many doctors assume that people want to extend their lives, many do not. I believe that my father’s doctors did their best within a compartmentalized and time-pressured medical system. But in the absence of any other guiding hand, there is no doubt that economics helped shape the wider context in which doctors made decisions.

The Power of Transparency

What keeps clients coming back? Lynn Grodzki—psychotherapist, business coach, and author—encourages therapists to be proactive in helping clients understand what to expect from the therapy process. This might seem simple, but it requires clear communication at two critical junctures.

Learning to Think About It in a New Way

According to Barbara Fredrickson, a leading scholar in the field of social psychology and affective science, we have a tendency to think about love in abstract terms. In this clip from her Networker Symposium keynote, she makes the case for broadening our perspective of what love means on both a physical and emotional level.

Why We Need to Leave Neutrality Behind

By Terry Real - Factions of men and women these days are feeling a powerful pull toward many of the notions of traditional masculinity. What we’re witnessing is a reassertion of its most difficult and harmful traits. And yet we psychotherapists, as a field, have remained largely silent about this resurgence. Is neutrality in these times really in our clients’ best interests?